Paul Doiron - Bad Little Falls

Instead, I received a call from Detective Zanadakis. I glanced at the automated clock on the BlackBerry screen. It was 10:30. I was half an hour late for my interview.

“Is there a problem?”

I apologized and told him I was on my way.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Department occupied one wing of a sprawling brick building in a neighborhood of handsome houses and venerable maples in downtown Machias. On one side was the county courthouse; on the other was the jail. Yard-long icicles hung from the eaves above the concrete front steps. I eyed them cautiously, thinking about swords hanging over unwitting heads and other metaphors of impending doom.

Whenever I entered the sheriff’s office, I had the sensation of having blundered into the sitting room of someone’s run-down, albeit historic home. On my first tour of the building, a deputy had told me that in bygone days the sheriff used to live in these very suites and that his wife would cook for the prisoners. The current sheriff lived with her female partner in a fancy house on the water in Machiasport, and the guy who cooked for the prisoners was a taciturn fellow who went by the nickname “Chef” and tended to reduce all solid food to mush because he himself was missing most of his teeth.

Rhine and Zanadakis were waiting for me in a parlor with a bricked-up fireplace and tall windows that dated from Edith Wharton’s girlhood. On either side of the mantel stood flags in stands, the Stars and Stripes to the left and the Maine state flag to the right. The sheriff’s Nike gym bag was wedged into the bookcase, below a shelfful of heavy legal tomes. A white-muzzled golden retriever sprawled on the hooked rug. The dog snored soundly, drawing deep and even breaths. It reminded me of Doc’s old mutt, Duchess.

A man was seated in a black leatherette chair across the desk from the sheriff. He wore a pigeon-gray sport coat over a black button-down shirt and a knotted wool tie. Faded black jeans and scuffed wing tips completed his outfit. His dark hair was tacky from some sort of hair product, and his skin had a bronze glow that, in this season, was either the residue of a Caribbean vacation or a tanning booth.

“We were just talking about you,” the sheriff said. “Have you met Lieutenant Zanadakis?”

“No, ma’am,” I said.

The detective and I shook hands. He made a point of making steady eye contact the whole time, as if testing whether I would look away. I didn’t.

“Thanks for coming in,” he said.

“Glad to help.”

“Have a seat,” said the sheriff. She was wearing an unflattering khaki uniform shirt, which was tucked into black polyester pants. She had clipped her star-shaped badge to her belt. Aside from her signature turquoise ring, the badge was her only fashion accessory.

“We were discussing your report just now,” said Zanadakis. “Sounds like you had quite a night.”

“It was certainly a long one.”

There was a knock at the door behind me. Chief Deputy Corbett, the balding blond officer I’d met at the Sprague house, leaned against the lintel. His jowls were red, and he wore his familiar black fleece vest with the star on the breast. “Mind if I sit in?” he asked the sheriff.

Rhine turned to the detective for his assent. Zanadakis’s shrug indicated he didn’t have a problem.

Corbett took a step into the room and leaned against the wall. I couldn’t see him there when I turned to face the sheriff and the detective, but I felt his presence the way you do in the forest when a crow is watching you from a tree.

“I’m going to take some notes.” Zanadakis removed a reporter’s notebook and pen from his blazer. “These are just for my own reference.”

“Where do you want me to begin?” I asked.

“At the vet’s house,” said the detective. “You were there for some sort of dinner party. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” I said. “Dr. Larrabee had invited me to his house for dinner. We were joined by Professor Kevin Kendrick from the University of Maine.”

“I need to ask if you consumed any alcoholic beverages while you were there.”

“No,” I said. “Just coffee.”

The detective made a note of this. “Did Larrabee or Kendrick?”

“Yes. I don’t know how much they had before I arrived, but while I was there, they split a bottle of wine and had a couple of glasses of whiskey. They were talking about having cordials when I left. That was one of the reasons Doc-”

Zanadakis looked up. “You mean Larrabee?”

“Sorry, yes. One of the reasons Dr. Larrabee asked me to drive him to the Sprague house was that he felt unfit to operate a motor vehicle.”

“Was he impaired?”

“In my judgment, yes.”

“What about Kendrick?”

“Possibly. He showed no outward signs of intoxication, but he consumed quite a lot of alcohol in my presence.”

“This was the first time you and Kendrick ever met?”

“Yes.”

“What was your impression of him?”

Even though Zanadakis was conducting this conversation in the most informal way possible, I was aware that his notes would be entered into evidence at a trial. We could all pretend that this was just a bunch of fellow cops collegially sharing information on a case, but anything I said now might haunt me at cross-examination.

“I found him to be highly intelligent and interesting. It sounds like he has led an adventurous life. When we were together in the Heath, he impressed me as a highly skilled outdoorsman.” I decided to stop there and let the detective tease out the rest.

“Did either Kendrick or Larrabee mention Randall Cates or John Sewall at the dinner?”

“No. However, we did discuss Trinity Raye.”

The sheriff couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward across the desk. “In what context?”

“Sergeant Rivard had been telling me earlier that day about a student who had overdosed. When I learned that Kendrick taught at the university, I asked him if he knew her. He said, ‘It’s a small school.’”

“Were those his exact words?” Zanadakis asked.

“As I recall them.”

“And that was all he said?” The sheriff turned her ring around 360 degrees on her finger.

“Yes,” I said. “It made me wonder if she was a student of his.”

“She wasn’t,” the sheriff said flatly, “so you can stop speculating.”

That dispensed with one of my theories. “I just realized that there’s something else that’s not in my report that you should know.”

They all waited for me to continue.

“I saw Prester and Randall earlier that day. It was at the McDonald’s in Machias. Sergeant Rivard and I were there getting breakfast. They came in and caused a scene.”

Zanadakis showed me his bleach-white teeth. “Sergeant Rivard included that information in his own report. It seemed a curious omission from yours.”

“I was exhausted when I wrote up my notes.” The truth was that I’d been distracted by my confrontation with Brogan and my lingering thoughts of Jamie Sewall.

“You also neglected to mention it to me when we met at that same McDonald’s yesterday.” Rhine’s tone was as sharp as a butcher’s knife.

“I was exhausted, as I said.”

Zanadakis glanced down at his notebook before reestablishing eye contact. “Describe the ‘scene’ Cates and Sewall caused.”

In my mind’s eye, I saw Randall snatch the visor from Jamie’s head and the look of pure anger on her face when I asked if she needed help. I worried that if I described her expression, it might sound incriminating in a way I didn’t intend. Once again, I felt inexplicable protectiveness toward her.

“They came into the restaurant and hassled Prester’s sister, Jamie Sewall,” I said. “She works there as a shift manager. I think they were harassing her for free food. She asked them to leave. They waited in the parking lot until she brought them a bag and a couple of coffees. It was how I recognized Cates later, when we discovered his body in the Heath.”